Once upon a time they spoke their own lingo – gazumping, contract races and bridging loans – but these days your London estate agent is speaking a new language: a foreign one. Yes, if you phone a branch of Douglas & Gordon and say, in your best Russian accent: "Ya khotel by kupit dom," the estate agent at the end of the phone will know what you mean. "I want to buy a house."
"We have seen 20 per cent more online registrations from overseas buyers compared to last year," says Ed Mead, from Douglas & Gordon, whose office employs Catalan and Gujarati speakers.
But in areas less popular with foreigners, an A-level in French or Spanish is not enough to keep an estate agent in business. Here, those precious words "I want to buy a house" don't seem to exist in any language, so agents are adopting other tactics.
"We have seen 20 per cent more online registrations from overseas buyers compared to last year," says Ed Mead, from Douglas & Gordon, whose office employs Catalan and Gujarati speakers.
But in areas less popular with foreigners, an A-level in French or Spanish is not enough to keep an estate agent in business. Here, those precious words "I want to buy a house" don't seem to exist in any language, so agents are adopting other tactics.